I actually picked this up the other day for the Virtual Console and I'm really disappointed. I heard that this one of the best games on the Master System, and if that's true, Sega fans and the Europeans & Brazilians who "chose" the SMS over the NES sure were getting over excited for such a piece of a system.

Alex Kidd is not exactly a bad game in my mind, but there are so many flaws that have annoyed the hell out of me. Like one hit kills, yeah most platformers and sidescrollers back in the day didn't have plentiful life bars but one hit kill plus the fact that 1ups are few and far apart, and you'll have to start all the way back if you lose is crap. It's like they tried to make an easy game hard for the worst possible reasons.

As for the platforming and action itself it isn't too bad. I do hate being stuck with Alex's fist, because it's pretty boring to use and pretty easy to mess up and die because of it. The control is a bit sloppy IMO so I got a little frustrated with some of the jumps I had to make.

The Janken boss matches are okay I guess, I just looked the answers up on Gamefaqs to avoid losing and getting my ass whipped by one of them.

I do like the little vehicles you get to use, kinda reminds me of the fun I had with Yoshi's Island when Yoshi could turn into all sorts of cool vehicles. I just wish I could stomach more of the game so I can see and use the rest of them.